Trump Provides Unsanctioned King Charles Cancer Update

Trump meets Prince William in at the U.K. ambassador’s residence in Paris December 7. Photo: Aaron Chown/Getty Images

The press offices for Britain’s royal family have only released a handful of carefully worded health updates on King Charles and Kate Middleton following their cancer diagnoses earlier this year. Basically all Prince William has said publicly is that his wife and father are “doing well.” Now the elaborate effort to maintain the royals’ privacy may have been compromised by Donald Trump, one of the world’s biggest gossips.

After attending the ceremonial reopening of Notre Dame cathedral on Saturday, Trump and Prince William met for about 40 minutes at the residence of the British ambassador in Paris. Kensington Palace described the meeting as “warm and friendly.” But the U.S. president-elect had a lot more to say in a dishy post-trip interview with the New York Post, which was published Sunday night:

On his meeting with UK Prince William, he said he had a “great talk” about the royal family, as both Kate Middleton and King Charles are recovering from cancer.

“I had a great talk with the prince,” Trump said. “And I asked him about his wife and he said she’s doing well. And I asked him about his father and his father is fighting very hard, and he loves his father and he loves his wife, so it was sad. We had a great talk for half an hour, a little more than half an hour. We had a great, great talk.”

The Washington Post reported that Trump’s remarks are “getting attention in Britain because the royal family has said so little about the king’s health status.” While Kate Middleton revealed in a handful of heavily produced social-media posts that she has completed preventative chemotherapy, we still do not know what type of cancer she has. The palace has not disclosed what cancer Charles has or what treatments he’s undergoing. Both royals have mostly returned to regular duties.

So is Charles “fighting very hard” because his cancer is more serious than Buckingham Palace is letting on? Or was Trump just relaying platitudes because he didn’t really get any inside information on the king’s health? It’s impossible to say.

Kensington Palace hasn’t responded to Trump’s gossiping or his other remarks on the prince. Per the New York Post:

[Trump also] commented on the prince’s good looks: “He’s a good-looking guy. He looked really, very handsome last night. Some people look better in person? He looked great. He looked really nice, and I told him that.”

Between this and Trump’s ongoing beef with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, it’s going to be hard for Prince William to stay mad at him for long.